Talking about everything
So 2017 has been... an interesting year in the realm of YouTube, and the wider internet. Interesting doesn't always mean good, and in this case it definitely does. I've been trying to keep an eye on everything that's going on and do as much research as possible. And things... don't look good. There's... kind of a war... going on between YouTube, big companies (the advertisers), and YouTube Content Creators. We've seen the inklings of this beginning in 2016. You may have heard of the controveries, like YouTube Heroes... where they decided to trust commenters to flag "negative videos" to earn the ability to mass flag videos. And YouTube trusted the commenters so much that they shut down the comments section on the Welcome to YouTube Heroes ''video. Soon after this, they started de-monitizing videos that had "controversial content" that advertisers apparently didn't like... even if that controversial content was the same topics covered by the traditional news media that they had no problems advertising over. And... because YouTube really likes the taste of egg on their face, they said that we shouldn't worry about this... because they had been doing this for years apparently and had just decided to start doing it recently. Then of course, there's the subscription bug. When some YouTubers upload a video - YouTube seems to automatically unsubscribe some users. But it's okay, they've checked hundreds of accounts out of literally over a billion and found no such problems. Even though I've personally seen evidence of this because my channel is one of them affected by the bug. Before November of last year, the ''only time that I've ever had negative subscribers for a day was when my channel was actually deleted. I know that this is a glitch because I'd always lose subscribers they day that I uploaded, and steadily got more subscribers every day I didn't upload. That doesn't make much sense, any way that you slice it. This is amidst other stupid YouTube moves, like removing annotations because.... well, YouTube's line of thought doesn't really get that far. And there was 2016's YouTube playback, which was filled mostly with people that weren't native to YouTube - mainstream celebrities and vine stars and etc. In the meantime, YouTube had been letting ad block advertise quite a lot on their platform, which... strikes me as an odd move. And then the news media starts attacking big YouTubers like PewDiePie and Jontron, and because of this many advertisers decide to start boycotting YouTube. And if that's not enough, YouTube rolled out restricted mode. It's been... an interesting few months, especially if YouTube is your job, and we've got a lot to talk about. I don't want to sound like a conspiracy nut, but too much has happened in too short of a time for this to be any kind of coincidence. Some of these events are obviously related. Let's talk about them, and what it means, and how the landscape of the internet is changing. It legitimately does have me worried. The only question is... where do we start? **** YouTube as a platform is known for several things. It's always been known to be extremely user hostile - deleting channels haphazardly, always siding with corporations when it came to copyright laws and fair use. Integrating things like Google+, regardless of what their general userbase thinks. And that it hasn't been profitable to YouTube. I mean, it is only math. YouTube is a free platform. Sure, channels like PewDiePie do give them a lot of money, but remember for every million-subscriber channel, there are about 990,000 users that don't really generate anything. They're mostly channels that are just used to view, or upload personal videos. Out of my own audience, only about 25 people in them have more than 100,000 subscriptions (the point in which I think you could feasibly turn YouTubing into a real career). Throughout 2016, YouTube has been courting the mainstream... a lot. Their YouTube Playback should be good evidence of that. Those squeaky clean people with name recognition are the people that YouTube wants. And... because of this, YouTube has gone out of its way to skew the playing field as unfairly as possible. I'd say slowly, but this is actually so rapidly, it's kind of giving me whiplash. There have many documented cases where YouTube demonetization has... well, for lack of a better word, an opinion of its own. I can't say the same for the subscription bug, but I don't think it's affecting people like John Oliver or CNN. My evidence? Why would they even be bothering to upload to YouTube at all if they were getting hit by these things? From my own experience, the only time before this glitch that I've ever had a day where I lost subscriptions was when my channel was deleted. Now, however, whenever I upload a video it seems that I end up losing something. But my experience isn't the only one you should be taking. Many channels have had an unusually low subscription rate for 2017 so far, too many in too large of a pool of subjects it seems. Boogie2988 has also had unusually low subscriptions, ChannelAwesome, Todd in the Shadows, Domics, etc. Then the Wall Street Journal attacks Pewdiepie. From what I could tell, they took several jokes out of context and were used to paint him as an antisemite. Regardless if the jokes were in good taste or not, they were taken out of context and it was clear that the Wall Street Journal report was a hit piece. One of the reporters who "criticized" PewDiePie for his antisemitic jokes had made similar jokes in the past. And is apparently an avid watcher of South Park, given his avatar, which also makes similar jokes. PewDiePie is no stranger to controversy, but this did cost him his YouTube red series and he was dropped by Maker Studios, which is owned by Disney. Then... because the Wall Street Journal took clips out of context, advertisers started boycotting YouTube because they didn't want their ads placed next to some of the "hate-filled content on YouTube." According to The Verge (1) - The Wall Street Journal is continuing on this crusade (2), saying that YouTube is still placing ads next to every -ism in the book. Also, because I don't want to give the Wall Street Journal money, here's a place you can read their paywall story for free (3). So... um... maybe I do have a conspiracy theory - the Wall Street Journal is actively conspiring against YouTube, and the hit piece on PewDiePie was only the first step. **** Let's talk about ads and how they work on various mediums. You know the whole "We don't necessarily have the same ideological opinion as who we are advertising with?" Yeah, this is part and parcel for virtually every single advertising method and most general consumers know this. Hell, most consumers tend to prefer this. If you want to advertise on any television show, all you need to do is make a commercial and pay an advertising fee. The reason that you don't tend to find advertisements for toys on horror shows is because it would be a waste of money. This is why most websites use targeted advertising - which guesses what you personally will buy on things you've already bought. It usually advertises the thing you just bought, but that's what happens. Even on YouTube, YouTubers and their advertisers have been opposed. For example, a YouTuber could take out ad space and that can play on their competitor's website. On my own channel, Legends of Chamberlain Place was advertised, a show that I didn't really want to succeed and even gave a negative review. Also, adblock has been advertising a lot in the past few months over YouTube like crazy (why is no one talking about this?). Do you really think that anyone who uses YouTube ads is really comfortable for ad block advertising on their channel? Advertisers on the internet seem to use a more... scattershot method, advertising on as much as possible, instead of the television approach of just advertising on a few channels, but that is really the only difference. Many companies are pulling their advertising from YouTube and demanding more control. This is definitely in their rights to do, but I don't think they've thought all of this out. I know that they don't choose where their ads go. So, if it appeared on say... a prank channel, then I'm not going to connect the two. An add for an RPG on a video where Sheogorath prank calls pizza, it makes sense, connected through the tags. However, if they get more control, they have more responsibility. I'd have to believe that the makers of that RPG condone and are encouraging prank calling people with soundboards of their characters. What these companies are now asking for is responsibility, which strikes me odd because so many of these companies try to take as little responsibility as possible. I didn't know that it was this easy to... basically bankrupt a website. I wonder, if I found out the companies that did this... and started posting some of their... less savory facts on twitter, would they pull their advertisement from twitter too? Then maybe I can move onto Facebook. I mean Wall-mart is really one to talk morals, aren't they? I mean, that's a company that built stores over archelogical sites and Native American burial grounds. Johnson and Johnson is also boycotting. (4) Johnson and Johnson makes Tylenol. 150 people die from it each year because the difference between a safe amount and a dangerous amount is very slim, and there's little warning. So... I dunno, maybe they want to keep advertising on "derogatory" videos... I mean, if they don't give a shit about killing people, maybe they should focus on the people they don't like. Also, "no tears" is bullshit and everyone knows it. I'm not going to keep doing this for every company, but a good... all of them really aren't one to talk morals. They're only doing this to save face. The Wall Street Journal reports did find some racist videos... on a site where 400 hours of video are uploaded every minute. Generally on YouTube, you don't find something unless you're specifically looking for it. Then again, these are big companies and they wouldn't know that because YouTube puts them in trending and sends them right to the top. You know, it must be really fun to work at the Wall Street Journal. You get to sit down and watch YouTube all day, feeling bitter at the world, specifically typing racial slurs into the search bar so you can pretend to despise them. **** I'm worried. I truly am, of what this means for the future of YouTube. It's clear the the company has priorities. They've always taken the side of big corporations and never stuck up for their users before. Actually, they basically decided to continually fuck the users and they will until YouTubers themselves can perform a similar mass exodus. Which they can't. This isn't the end of the story. Every time another big YouTuber makes even the slightest... less than perfect move... you'll be sure to hear about it. And YouTuber Celebrities are more prone to making these less than perfect moves. This is because, well... they're different. Normal celebrities have PR people and are basically groomed into being celebrities. When you're a YouTuber, you fall into it, almost universally. And when you fall, you tend to stumble. It makes them more honest, but the "mainstream audience" doesn't want honesty. They want a squeaky clean picture of perfection. I suppose... in a way, it's liberating. If these people are going to hate you for what they think you are, regardless of what you actually do, there's no reason to not do exactly what you want. You'll be a lot happier before you strike their ire. Maybe you think that I'm over-reacting. Sure, the Wall Street Journal and mainstream media is attacking, but... they're not winning, right? You ever hear the saying - win the war, not the battle? They're not winning, yet. They attacked PewDiePie by creating a controversy. They got on Jontron because he... well, let's say he didn't articulate himself the best. But here's the thing - they have audiences that really like them. When Yuka-Laylee dropped Jontron's voice, many people started asking for refunds in what I can only see a sign of solidarity, or at the very least, the general (growing) annoyance at things like this constantly blowing up. Internet audiences are really tired of that. However... what happens when a big YouTuber actually has a real genuine controversy? Not something that was made up, taken out of context, or spun? Remember all of the controversies that happened in early 2016? If something happens like that again, they will capitalize on that. What if they start attacking the more... hated and toxic famous YouTubers? Actually, I don't expect them to do that. They can't spin the story that "these hateful people are thriving" if YouTubers are actively kicking these toxic people to the curb and they get called out by other big members of the community. **** Lost in all the shuffle is the YouTube community. Maybe some of them have noticed everything going on right now. Maybe many of them have grown dull to YouTube bullshit, but I feel that we actively have to do something if we're to survive this. A lot of people have taken to going after the Wall Street Journal's advertisers, but there's the good old "win the war, not the battle." I don't think we should be given even more power and credence to the advertisers, which are becoming a major linchpin and a very powerful weapon. This isn't going to be the last time the YouTube community is attacked. Heaven knows it's not the first. I think that there needs to be... some kind of YouTuber's union. Yeah, I know Multichannel Networks exist, but... they don't really do anything except (usually) scam naive newcomers into giving a large share of their ad revenue for nothing in return. A union is a bit different though. Like a Network is supposed to do, they demand things from their boss. However... if they don't get what they want, the members of the union are expected to go on strike. That's how they get their power to demand benefits and protections. It's definitely... not an appealing option, but it may be something that has to be done in the end. Many YouTubers will have to start looking to other sources of revenue. It's a well-known, but seldom liked chestnut that many of your favorite content creators need to make money to be able to keep doing this. I know I do. Even if I had a "real job" I wouldn't be able to keep this going - I need to pay my editor, and pay for everything that I use to review. Even though I like what I'm doing, a sinking financial hole isn't much encouragement. I am so glad that services like patreon exist. If you can provide to your favorite content creators - not just me, it really does help. I'd prioritize the "least advertiser friendly." A YouTuber's only real other option is direct brand sponsorship... which seems to fix everyone's problem. The company gets directly to the audience they want to reach and don't have to worry about it going on things they determine to be "derogatory." The YouTuber doesn't need to worry about their funding being shut off randomly. It's one of the few things in this career that has some degree of certainty. The only problem is that... they tend to go over badly with the audience. Provided proper disclosure is being followed and there are no conflicts of interest, it really helps to... tolerate the thousandth time you hear "this video has been sponsored by lootcrate." It may not seem like much, but honestly, YouTuber's options seem to be get more limited as time goes on and feel the pressure of being pushed off the website - both from inside and outside. I find myself increasingly desperate to make a website that I can upload my own videos onto. I'm even willing to hire a webmaster to take care of all of that. You know, I need to have something where I can feel that I'm safe. Sure, Vid.me is great, but they don't have advertising yet, and they are as prone to corruption as any other website. Also, I think that if Vid.me is going to survive in the public's eye, it really has to get advertising going by the end of this year. Hopefully we all can survive by the end of the year. Category:Miscellaneous